Penn State Lehigh Valley to participate in Common Intellectual Experience

Project partners STEM-based education, business programs with local businesses
students working with computers and other STEM-related tools at a long desk

Students in Tracey Carbonetto’s Engineering Design 100 class will be part of the Common Intellectual Experience at Penn State Lehigh Valley this fall.

Credit: Tracey Carbonetto

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Chris Briggs understands what it means to look to the future and leave a place better than how you found it. As a former teacher, Briggs has taught and mentored hundreds of students. Now he’s teaming up with Penn State Lehigh Valley (PSU-LV) students for a new initiative.

The Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) is meant to enhance a student’s course of study by bringing them together across disciplines. This fall, PSU-LV faculty and students from the STEM and business departments, working in conjunction with PSU-LV LaunchBox, will partner with Briggs, now the owner of Bethlehem eBike. Students will practice integrated learning and identify a solution to a problem from their respective discipline. PSU-LV business students completed a pilot project in the spring 2024 semester with a different business owner and are gearing up to expand both the disciplines that will be participating and the scope of the project. This is an expanded version of a pilot program that launched at PSU-LV last spring with a small group of students.

“Penn State Lehigh Valley is well-suited to CIE,” said Laura Cruz, research professor at Penn State’s Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and member of the pilot project’s steering committee. “It’s small enough in that it has a strong sense of community among the professors and students, a sense of community already exists, and we can build on that to strengthen ties across the campus and community.”

Sustainability is a common thread throughout the project and a key factor for all students to consider from their various perspectives. For Briggs, he wants his business to be an equitable solution for those who may not be able to afford a vehicle.

“E-bikes have a lower cost for those with lower incomes,” he said. “It’s very expensive to buy and maintain a vehicle. There are lots of different ways this could go. I am interested in sustainability and there are lots of ways to engage in local, sustainable practices. I’m interested in determining if there is a way forward for light electric vehicles to benefit everyone.”

“We truly want to see this as an integrated approach so we can provide value-added suggestions to the business we’re working with,” said Maung Min, associate teaching professor and director of business programs at PSU-LV. “In the past, it was more business-focused; by adding the STEM elements of biology and engineering, the end result may be much richer than just working with one discipline.”

One of the initial reviews that students in the supply chain and project management program will focus on is purchasing raw materials.

“In talking with Chris [Briggs], there are some opportunities for reviewing procurement activities and looking for supply sources that might be more sustainable than others,” said Mark Capofari, lecturer in project and supply chain management. “Business owners are looking for onshoring opportunities that not only lower the costs of being sourced in the United States, but are more sustainable versus buying overseas. We’ll be looking in the procurement space of the buy-make-ship model.”

A secondary benefit of the initiative is students will gain a more holistic picture of what it takes to start, maintain and grow a business by deepening their understanding of how each discipline, or department, contributes to its success.

“Generally, it’s getting the students engaged with learning about other areas and will create a nexus on how the PSCM discipline and the others rely on each other,” Capofari said.

Tracey Carbonetto, assistant teaching professor of engineering, said it made sense to get her engineering students involved with the project.

“The owner of the company was looking for optimized practices in retrofitting the bikes to electrify them. One of the things we do in engineering is optimize manufacturing and industry practices. [The students] will identify where the inefficiencies are and brainstorm ideas that will improve the current status. They will use engineering tools including some coding and CAD work that will further that practice,” she said. “It aligns with what we do in Engineering Design 100. In thinking about bringing in an engineering degree to have a design focus, it was a nice match.”

Subhadra Ganguli, assistant teaching professor of business, looks for every opportunity for her economics students to apply classroom learning to real-world situations. Working with Briggs will give them invaluable experience.

“The whole idea will be for students to figure out how Briggs’ business can be more sustainable from the cost or profit perspective,” Ganguli said. “They can think of it as an application of microeconomic theory learned in the classroom to the real world of business.”

Marketing and biology students round out the “back end” of the process. Students in the Consumer Behavior course taught by Denise Ogden, professor of marketing, will analyze the buying process when it comes to purchasing an e-bike.

“The internet has increased consumers’ ability to conduct a lot of research prior to a purchase,” Ogden said. “We’re interested in what makes a person not want to buy an e-bike — what are some of the obstacles? What type of person would say, ‘This is definitely something I could purchase’? It’s really thinking about the customer’s journey to help the owner think about where we could remove obstacles along the way, or better educate the consumer so their apprehensions are lessened when it comes to buying an e-bike.”

To round out the holistic perspective on owning and operating a business, students in William Serson’s biology class will apply STEM concepts by offering technical expertise.

“What we hope it does is to get them to think outside the box and understand some problems can’t be fixed in a day,” Serson said. “With the CIE, the goal is to collaborate with people from different intellectual backgrounds and work with others to solve problems that don’t have easy solutions — we call them ‘wicked problems.’”

The project will culminate in a presentation at the end of semester in which the students will present their findings and offer their feedback. Briggs is excited to work with the students.

“As a former educator, I’ve been on the other side where I brought my students to a business,” he said. “Now I get to be the business owner and collaborate on the other side.”

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